Posts tagged ‘candy memories’

Each one of us has, I believe, our own personal candy Madeline. Mine is butterscotch. Callard & Bowser Butterscotch, to be precise.

If you’re old enough to think “text” means the stuff they read in church, you might remember Callard & Bowser. This was a line of toffees boxed in cigarette-style packages. The Callard & Bowser logo was a green and purple thistle. I remember a black box (licorice toffee, I think), and a silver box (maybe chocolate toffee?). But the only box I cared about was white: butterscotch. Or “butterrrrrrscotch,” as my father would tease. He wanted me to learn to roll my r’s the way he could.

Callard & Bowser Butterscotch was the flavor of my father’s love. I was three years old. Daddy would bring a box home each week on his way home from the university. And each night, I’d get a piece. The pieces were long rectangles, scored down the center and wrapped in shiny foil paper. The piece marched across the table toward me at the end of dinner, one step for each sip of milk. Finish my milk, and the prize was mine.

I still like milk (hmm, score one for Skinner). And I love butterscotch. It dawned on me recently that I hadn’t seen that C&B box in quite some time. A little poking around revealed a sad but familiar story: mergers, acquisitions, dropping of old brands, and poof! a classic candy is no more.

In this particular case, the corporate shell game is convoluted. Callard & Bowser was a venerated British confectioner, with origins way back in the 1830s. Today, the only C&B brand of confectionery that is still produced is Altoids, the Curiously Strong Peppermint. Rather than attempt to reconstruct the tragic events leading to the demise of my beloved butterscotch from scratch, I defer to the Wikipedia version of the eviscerating of Callard & Bowser:

Callard and Bowser-Suchard was sold by Beatrice Foods to Terry’s of York in 1982,which was then acquired by Kraft General Foods International/Philip Morris Tobacco Company in 1993. Wrigley’s of Chicago agreed to buy the C&B and Life Savers units from Kraft in November 2004 for USD$1.48 billion after beating out competitors Hershey, Mars, Nestlé and Cadbury. The purchase was completed in June, 2005. Altoids is now owned by Mars, which acquired Wrigley’s in October 2008.

Callard & Bowser is mourned by many as the finest butterscotch to ever have been made. I couldn’t agree more; remembered candies are the sweetest.

Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure

Welcome to Candy Professor

Candy in American Culture What is it about candy? Here you'll find the forgotten, the strange, the curious, the surprising. Our candy story, one post at a time.

(C) Samira Kawash

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